Chasing Hong Kong Dollars--Lots of Them

Hong Kong residents think about only three things, as the saying goes. Work, Food, and Shopping. But I think the over-arching thought is about making money. And the evidence of that is all around me. In the scores of financial institutions that populate Hong Kong Island, in the high end stores that are found in most malls, in the equally up-scale hotels that dot the harbor, and even in the comments from my students about their life goals.

It is probably to be expected that money would drive some of the values here as Hong Kong is a major world financial center. That also explains the fact that the income gap between rich and poor is among the highest in the world. A recent UN report indicated that the richest 10 per cent of the people here possess about one-third of the territory’s income while the poorest 10 per cent get only 2 per cent.

One good indicator of how rich those people at the top are is the price that apartments go for here. In September a newspaper headline announced that a record was set for the price of a one-bedroom flat in a new building called The Masterpiece (which I can see from my hotel room window) at $3.3 million (U.S.). That bought the local businessman 816 square feet of space. Hardly a palace but how many people can say they live in a masterpiece?  (Pictured here behind the "Pinnacle Apartments," the Masterpiece is currently the tallest building in Hong Kong).

One interesting scheme  for raising a lot of money was offered up by a local bank recently. Upon reaching the 150^th anniversary of the bank’s opening, bank executives decided to issue a limited number of $150 HK notes and sell them at $280 as collectors’ items. The plan hasn’t attracted so many customers, I hear. Supposedly the bank was going to give the profits to charity.

Though we are constantly told about the changed behavior since the economic tsunami in Hong Kong, a recent global poll found that Hong Kongers are still spending as they did before the downturn (77% said that) and more than half are still buying luxury goods. (Synovate survey in August).  I’m not sure if that is true, but I do know that the malls are still chock-full of people almost any time of the day or night.

Hong Kong Students and their Goals

This atmosphere of consuming also affects my undergraduate students in the approach to their education and their choice of life occupation. Granted, my experience is only that, but I’ll share what has been happening in my classroom this semester.

I have noticed that the students in my international communications class appear to be less than interested in the topic of the course despite my efforts to make it relevant to their lives. Though it is a required course for all students in media and communication, it is a class in their major. And so I have inquired about their apathy towards the class. In my office one day two students said that they really didn’t want to major in communications, but they were there because they didn’t qualify for business school. In Hong Kong students take entry exams to be admitted to the university and are able to enroll in courses of study according to the points they receive. Since such a system is also in place in Turkey, I knew how it worked. So I asked if engineering and computer science were at the top of this hierarchy and therefore required the most points. “Oh no,” one of them replied. “Business is at the top.”  Communications is somewhere near the middle. Further discussion revealed that their goal was really to make money  rather than find a career that they love, and they chose whatever major for which their scores qualified them to reach that outcome.

The conversation helped me to understand why they might not be so engaged with a critical treatment of global media barons and the trend toward concentration of ownership. And their minds might be thinking about ways they could transfer majors as I talked about the revenue declines in the news business.

What they do seem to be interested in is electing student groups to represent the student body. I noticed this phenomenon as I arrived at the entrance to the university every morning for about two weeks. Each day a different set of groups in matching outfits and with signs bearing slogans would be shouting out cheers to promote their individual group. At 8:30 in the morning,, I  was surprised by their excessive energy and asked about the purpose of the shouting. Students told me that if elected, they would organize interesting activities for their classmates or even to try to get textbook prices reduced. Each group tried to outdo the others in the promises made. I commented to the security guard on duty that if they put just 10 per cent of that energy into their studies, they might be better off. He replied that he only wished he had the opportunity to go to school, but that because his family was poor, he was unable to attend.  Perhaps he might actually have enjoyed a class in international communication.

Though his comment made me sad, I knew that such events were part of student culture and that U.S. students who join sororities and fraternities were not much different than this. And besides, I told myself, they were learning leadership and entrepreneurial skills this way. Perhaps it will get them closer to their goal of making money after graduation.